You Know What Else is Dangerous? BundleStars – Part Twelve: Uprising Bundle

I’m not sure there’s a lot of theme to this one—games that involve some amount of upwards motion? Sometimes? Whatever—two dollars, random games, some amusement.

DungeonUp - A pseudo-roguelike dungeon crawler with randomly generated (but persistent) puzzle-ish levels--and I think calling it a resource-management puzzle game wouldn't be inappropriate. The game flat-out tells you how much HP fighting any given monster will cost you, so most of the game is trying to maneuver to the powerups while losing as little of your health (which has no upper limit but is only restored by limited potions) as possible. Unfortunately, because levels are random, you can end up in unwinnable situations--for instance, needing a blue key when none are available on any earlier levels; or not being able to kill enough creatures to reach upgrade items because your health is too low. Dying sends you back to just after the last boss you killed and respawns all of the subsequent levels, which is a mercy but still frustrating. I think that if there was a set, determined-to-be-winnable path I would like this better. As noted with other roguelikes, "Try, die, try again" as a method of gameplay gets frustrating for me, especially when you need to re-play a lot upon dying.

Olympia Rising - You play as Iola, a heroine who was killed but has now been reawakened in the underworld and needs to bribe Charon (over and over again) to get out. Side-scroller with controls that are a cross between Gargoyle's Quest and Metroid (spin jumping is very critical, as is wall-clinging), though there's a lot of "slide" to the motions and it feels like either the hitboxes are wonky or the mercy invincibility isn't nearly long enough. Fun for a bit and with a very pretty style, but it gets frustrating.

Ace Of Words - A bare-bones Boggle game. You get either six or eight letters and a limited time to make as many words as possible, and then your score is compared to their overall leaderboard. (Which clearly isn't very large, as I made rank #200 on my first go.) The achievements all revolve around making lots of words. Play Letter Quest instead--there's just nothing to this.

Hyperspace Invaders II: Pixel Edition - Shoot-em-up bullet hell with heavy graphical reference to the classic Space Invaders, as you might guess. (And also by that time the developers all took Ecstasy at a rave.) Sure to cause a seizure while you maneuver trying to avoid some flashing pixels while catching others. I'm not sure I entirely understood what was going on--there is so much stuff on screen at any point, and I was mostly trying to avoid being crashed into and collect the shiny sun power-ups that give side lasers (which seem to be the key to big combos).

Ruzh Delta Z - Another bullet hell shooter, but with even less of a gimmick to sell it. Not really my thing.

Magical Brickout - Best described as "rotating pinball", you can spin the stage and must try to keep a bouncing ball within the bounds of it while destroying the blue pieces (which free fairies or something--the story is an afterthought). I'm reminded of Peggle Blast, but it's less fun.

Collisions - There's a rolling, bouncing ball. You have an assortment of pinball-style springs, gates and flippers. There are 54 stages. Get the ball to the goal, via a combination of cleverness and reflexes. There's a minigame and a bug-squashing game hidden in it; there's a secret exit to many of the levels; and it's certainly got a lovely atmospheric quality; but it's still short and simple. You can play the whole thing in less than an hour.

Hypt - You're a little dot riding on a track while pixelated cannons shoot at you. Fortunately, you have a shield and can bounce their shots back at them. Each level is a timing puzzle of where to stop and what angle to reflect things at. Apparently there's more variety once you get a ways in (more complicated levels, boss battles, etc), but it didn't grab me enough to stick it out.

Grimoire: Manastorm - Still in alpha build (it's a Steam Early Access game), this is a multiplayer arena FPS game where the characters are all wizards and your attacks are various elemental spells; you also have access to teleport spells, shields, etc. Unfortunately, while it's a cool concept and it looks neat, there's nobody playing it and, as noted, it's still in Alpha. Check back in a year on this one; if it's still around it'll likely be something cool.

Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business - A "famous" adventurator accidentally bumbles into hunting down the infamous Geoff the Murderer to stop his murderings and also retrieve a puppy. Fiddle talks like a Victorian Ned Flanders as he and his Cyclops manservant creatively blunder through an anachronistic London. It's short, but there are some cute bits and the puzzles are decent. They apparently Kickstartered episode 2, and while I wouldn't pay "full price" for it, I'd pull it out of a bundle.

Overall: Nothing in here was particularly mind-blowing; most of it fell into the category of “That was fun for half an hour, and now I’m done.” Worth the sale price, but nothing worth going out of your way for.

You Know What Else is Dangerous? BundleStars – Part Thirteen: Enigma Bundle

Another bundle of point-and-click adventure games, using the same formulaic build as the Artifex Mundi games, for the most part. They drift a bit more in terms of quality and variety, but are ultimately more variations on the theme.

Nearwood - Collector's Edition - A bit more in the adventure/puzzle item combination genre than the Artifex Mundi games and with better production values (it's very pretty); but it still has plenty of brainteasers and hidden object puzzles. The story of Jane searching a mystical otherworldly realm for her parents and saving the inhabitants is totally trite, but that's not what you're playing for. (Though credit to them that “otherworldly fantasy” isn’t otherwise well-represented by the game genre.) Interestingly, in addition to including hints and skips for puzzles, the walkthrough/FAQ for the game is built into it. I think I needed to access it exactly once (there’s a code that I couldn’t find); as the puzzles are just hard enough to be fun, but not to frustrate.

Space Legends: At the Edge of the Universe - It's a standard point-and-click adventure game with moderately pretty graphics. The translation has issues (clues are often useless and the names of objects in the hidden object puzzles are often obtuse), and the puzzles are unnecessarily obtuse (I actually skipped a bunch of them, which I try to never do in these kinds of games). This clearly hasn't been updated in a while, as there are no Steam achievements, and it needs to be set to Windows XP compatibility mode in order to run. After a first sequence on a space station, you're put into a standard pseudo-medieval setting, which irritates me greatly--if you're going to have a sci-fi game, and it's only a few hours long regardless, you can stay in a full sci-fi setting the whole time. Heck, the plot feels like three different games hacked together--there are three major areas with unrelated main quests, the danger in the last area comes out of nowhere, and your main character spontaneously changes outfits with no explanation. Also, Steve (your fellow space station worker) is totally useless to the point where Jethrien started calling him Moon Moon. Dammit, Moon Steve! I can't really recommend this, as there are far better games in the genre.

Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome Collector's Edition - A reporter investigating a mysterious killer comes to a spooky mansion to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, where he's led through a string of puzzles by the mysterious masked "Oscar", who announces over a loudspeaker and disappears behind trapped doors. I give them credit in that this is the point-and-click adventure game with the best explanation for the puzzles that I've seen so far: You're being lead around by a maniac serial killer who set them all up! While this has no achievements and a couple of the connections are a bit obtuse, it does have a decent hint system and a built-in guide. It also has a bonus chapter that DOESN'T reuse the game's main setting, which I found impressive.

House of 1,000 Doors: Family Secrets Collector's Edition - Kate is a burned-out writer who is invited to a séance and has a vision of her grandmother, telling her to go to the mysterious extra-dimensional House of 1,000 Doors. It feels more open than some of the other games in that you can access a lot of puzzles early, but it’s just an illusion of openness: Each area has a sequence, where you can find one thing and it’ll lead you through a daisy-chain of solving everything nearby. There are several objects that you get very early on that you don't use until very late in the game, and there are several puzzles in the first couple of rooms you visit that are among the last you solve. But even better: You keep a knife and lighter for most of the game, using them repeatedly in a bunch of sensible situations! (Which almost lets me forgive them for needing to retrieve a pot of hot water and a bucket of water from two completely different places, when the pot should be able to be filled twice.) The plot is not really coherent, as you're really being tested and then invited to join the occupants of the house in setting ghosts to rest...but this will somehow redeem your family legacy? Hunh? Whatever. It's standard point-and-clink adventure game; the puzzles are fine and the game flow is decent. It's got a built-in strategy guide and a bonus chapter. Could use a map, but that's about all it’s missing.

Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Hearts Murders - Your daughter has been kidnapped by the Lonely Hearts Killer! You have 30 days to track her down, not that the time limit actually matters. Now granted, the locations of clues and items in point-and-click adventure games is usually weird, but this is particularly nonsensical: You find the keys to a policeman's safe in your cupboard and a broken steam line--but that's fine, as the policeman has a brass cuckoo from your clock in his other secret wall safe. You find a raw fish wrapped up in a mailbox. You find pieces of your personal picture frame scattered around town. Forget the Lonely Hearts Killer, who the hell is the local ultra-prolific kleptomaniac who keeps rearranging all this stuff? I think part of the problem is that the locations aren't "contained" like in many other games--we're wandering a town, not a single mansion, ship or amusement park. The other part of the problem is that a fair percentage of the clue objects are either unique missing pieces of mechanisms/art, or keys. There are relatively few tools that you're using to solve problems, and just a lot of key objects that need to get plugged into holes. The story is impressively overacted, but that doesn't save it from the fact that it's kind of stupid and most of the salient details come out in an infodump while your viewpoint character fades in and out of consciousness. It's a shame that the brainteaser puzzles were generally decent, because it's not worth the rest of the game to get to them. (Oh, and one hidden-object puzzle has you looking for a “trumpet,” but the actual object is a tuba. Insult to injury.) I didn't bother playing the bonus chapter.

Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island - This is a classic-style adventure game that's clearly trying to be in the style of the Monkey Island series. It doesn't managed to be quite as silly or as charming, but the puzzles are certainly obtuse enough. I wasn't interested enough in the story to fight my way through the puzzles.

Mystery Masters: Psycho Train Deluxe Edition - A specter called The Trainman crashes the train you’re riding and kidnaps your daughter. Trapped in the trainman's world of ghosts and puzzles, you must defeat him and save her. I'm much more willing to accept the bizarre distribution of objects and puzzles when you're traveling through a haunted dream-world. This has no voice-acting and very little animation (but that's okay, really), and moves through fairly self-contained areas that feel a bit like chapters. The interaction with NPCs is also very low compared to most other games in the bundle.

This bundle also contained another House of 1,000 Doors game called The Palm of Zoroaster Collector's Edition. I'll play that eventually, but I'm not expecting any huge surprises.

Overall: This was even more of a mixed bag than the Artifex Mundi bundle, likely because these didn’t all share a publisher and therefore varied more in quality. Nearwood and Dorian Gray Syndrome were probably the two strongest, but you have to like the genre—neither will convince you of the wonders of point-and-click adventure games if you’re skeptical.